Can censorship be justified????hmmmm......

This is taken from Yueh Phing’s blog, as part of our groups debate:

My class recently had a debate in censorship and that made me wonder whether is censorship is justified. I googled the word censorship and got these information. “Censorship is the removal and withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body. Typically censorship is done by governments, religious groups, or the mass media, although other forms of censorship exist. The withholding of official secrets, commercial secrets, intellectual property, and privileged lawyer-client communication is not usually described as censorship when it remains within reasonable bounds. Because of this, the term "censorship" often carries with it a sense of untoward, inappropriate or repressive secrecy. Censorship is closely related to the concepts of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. When overused, it is often associated with human rights abuse, dictatorship, and repression.”

I cannot imagine a world without censorship. “In many countries there will be multiple liability for production of slanderous material, material which incites racial hatred. Where the author or publisher can not be traced or are insolvent the printers can be sued or prosecuted in some circumstances. The relatively small number of internet service providers (ISPs) should be made liable if they assist in the provision of dangerous and harmful information such as bomb making instructions, hard core pornography.”

Young children will be watching pornography without control. 8% of criminals rate pornography as their highest sexual interest. Psychologist, Edward Donnerstein from the University of Wisconsin found that brief exposure to violent forms of pornography can lead to anti-social attitudes and behaviour. This shows how dangerous pornography can be. Without censorship, I cannot imagine what will happen to the world. “In 8 of January of 2007, Brazilian authorities tried to censor the site Youtube.com due to a video of scenes of sex between the model Daniela Cicarelli and her boyfriend Renato Malzoni, filmed by a paparazzo on a beach in Spain. Companies responsible for the access to the Internet in Brazil, such as Brasil Telecom and Telefonica, initially accepted the judicial order readily, and hindered access to the site with the offending videos. Due to the great displeasure regarding the decision in the community, authorities rescinded their order the following day, and Youtube.com was once again widely available to computer users in Brazil.”

“During the Spanish-American War of 1898, reporters, if anything, led cheers for the military. Throughout World War I, journalists considered themselves part of the war effort, not independent observers. This pattern of press and military cooperation continued through World War II. But starting with the Korean War and then Vietnam, the press took an increasingly independent and critical view of the military. In Vietnam, more than 2,000 accredited reporters roamed freely throughout battle zones interviewing ordinary soldiers rather than relying on the often rosy picture of the war presented by the Pentagon. There were few incidents of news stories endangering U.S. troops or military operations. But negative press accounts fueled anti-war feelings back home. When the war in Southeast Asia finally ended, many in the military blamed the press for "losing Vietnam." Some Pentagon officials resolved to restrict press coverage of future American wars. In 1983, the Pentagon barred all journalists from the initial invasion of Grenada. Then in 1989, the Pentagon selected a dozen reporters to cover the invasion of Panama and restricted them to an airport in Panama until nearly all fighting ended.” Negative reports will make the situation worse like in the case of the Vietnam War.

“The issues at stake in this debate, protection of children, terrorist activity, crime, racial hatred are all international problems. If a global solution is required then it can be achieved by international co-operation and treaties. It is acknowledged that it is justifiable to censor where harm is caused to others by the speech, words or art of an author, all the examples cited above are clearly causing harm to various groups in society. By a combination of the initiatives listed above it is possible to limit that harm.”

Activists might fight for freedom of speech, but freedom without control will make the world a worse place to be in.

The problem with the modern media is they do not have a sense of social justice.

Nowadays, with the media being so open, people are now more exposed to it then before. However, despite the growing need to be more socially responsible so as to maximise to the uses of the media, people are getting more irresponsible.

Take for example, the Prophet Mohammad incident; the Danish caused much controversy and unrest in the Islamic region. All because of a single act. An irresponsible act by a person. This caused a backlash and endangered many people’s life that is trapped on the wrong borders. The media has grown to be an overlord of information, not the protector of good quality information. Even, wrong and misleading articles like the drawing could be posted. This goes to show that the media has decayed to a level where it even endorsed such stuff as relevant news.

Another thing is, the media is only keen on promoting their own interest, whatever juicy attention seeking news they have they would publish out. They no longer have the sense of social justice to filter out the unacceptable bits. They are just interested in their own profits. So thus, how is anyone going to believe in a media which serves its own interest and not the community?

Lastly, my stand is that the media itself has evolved into something rather different from its past. In the past, the media was more factual in its reporting of news. Now, the media reports even made up news just to gain more recognition and money. The difference in objective is particularly large. One is to provide the most accurate and quickest information to the public while the other is driven by profit. Something which is driven by profit is not really a practiser of social justice right?

To round of this discussion, I would say that the modern media has no sense of social justice, mainly because now, it is driven by profit and not motivation to provide the best informations.

Censorship can never be justified?

Can censorship ever be justifiable? I believe it could be.

Firstly, censorship is justifiable in the act of preventing unwanted information from spilling out to the public. For example, in the Iraq War, the deaths of the soldiers fighting on the frontlines are all heavy covered up. The bodies if any are recovered and sent back to their families. No word is passed out to the public, except to the families. This is done to keep the morale of the people back in USA up. Though this may seem inhumane to a certain extent, looking it from another angle, they are doing this to keep a brave front so that the people will not see themselves as being governed by a weak government and thus lose faith in them. Faith is very important for a government as without the peoples support, they will inevitably crumble.

Secondly, censorship is used to prevent unpleasant and unethical stuffs from reaching us. Pornography, racist remarks, propaganda and vulgarities, to name a few are all unwanted. Stuff like this can be taken out from newspaper and radios before it can reach the people. That way, people can be protected by these ‘evil’

Well, though now everyone is talking about freedom of speech and how censorship should be banned, eliminated and the whole idea of it thrown away. I have to agree that freedom of anything one wants to do is important in this modern contest. But as always, there would be people who do not have any regards for the dignity of others. As such it would still be essential to have someone to look over it and to edit it if need be to prevent backlash from public communities. This is the same as censorship.

Thus, censorship is justifiable as like it or not, it has a purpose to serve. the community.

Our god gives us the right to bear arms?

The recent Virginia Tech shooting massacre has caused many people to wonder: is it alright for people to will firearms? The massacre, other than the high body count, also raised an issue on national security.

It highlighted the gun control problem in the US. The control is too relaxed for such a dangerous item. There is little or no restriction on the people who are allowed to buy a gun? Even a mentally unsound person like Cho was able to purchase 2 guns which he used to kill a number of people before turning the gun on himself.

The main reason for allowing people to purchase firearms is for the act of self defense. Guns have been used to protect one from a home intruder or other troubles. Even so, guns are also used for a sinister purpose too. People abuse the right and used the guns to commit crimes. It is sad that in the society, there are not many cases of self-defense using guns but many more cases of abuse of guns for killings.

I strongly feel that the gun control should be stricter where only authorized people can buy the guns. A lesser number of guns being wielded will result in a lesser chance of bloodshed. Also, firearms should not be sold so liberally, one have to pass tests which checks a person’s mental state before he is allowed to acquire one.

Another issue is about the security in schools. A school is a place where students go to acquire knowledge. Naturally this place should be safe and free from such terror-inducing acts. We are lucky that here in Singapore, we are relatively safe as Singapore has very strict firearm laws. Mere possession of one is enough for an arrest and discharging one result in death sentence. But, in the US, students may be going to school with firearms with them, not to participate in a mindless bloodbath but to protect themselves from one. Is it not saddening that people have to arm themselves to kill just to prevent themselves from being killed? Where is the morality in humans? On the other hand, schools ought to have better security to at least safeguard the students in case of another incident like this. A number of teachers trained in situation control can help to evacuate students or even be trained to handle the gunmen.

In conclusion, the Virginia Tech shooting massacre has raised another reason for tighter firearms control and an improvement in school security.